Connor Swift eager for Tour de France return after surviving his first edition

The former British road race champion from Doncaster was a surprise inclusion in French team Arkea-Samsic’s eight-man squad for the most famous race in cycling.

Prior to setting off from Nice three weeks ago, the longest race the 24-year-old had completed was the eight-day Tour of Britain.

But on the Champs-Elysees in Paris on Sunday evening, Swift was animating the breakaway, cajoling his fellow escapees and maximising every last moment of his 21st and final day in the saddle at the end of a gruelling three-week race.

“To get in the breakaway on the Champs-Elysees was the icing on the cake,” Swift told The Yorkshire Post when reflecting on his Tour de France debut.

“In the team meeting before the stage, they said it was an open race. I’d tried to get in the break on stage 17 but just missed it, so I was determined to get in it on the final day and just go and have a bit of fun.

“We always sensed that we’d get caught because the peloton kept us on a pretty tight leash and we were never more than 20 seconds in front, but even so, it was still a great experience.

“It was just a case of staying out front for as long as we could – which we managed for a couple of laps – and enjoying it. Even if it was a little uncomfortable in the saddle on those potholes.”

There were other moments of discomfort for the grand tour novice, notably those mountain stages in the Alps and Pyrenees, when the race for the yellow jersey – thrillingly won by Slovenian Tadej Pogecar – but Swift can put it all down to the learning experience.

“The last three days in the mountains were super, super tough, but, to be honest, if you’re not involved in the general classification fight you can just drop back into the sprinters group and it becomes just like a training ride, one that has to be the right tempo to ensure you’re not falling behind the time cut and dropping out of the race.

“Hopefully, if I’m able to do the race again next year and there are more fans allowed at the roadside, that will make those mountains a little easier because you’ll be cheered on.”

As well as the phyiscal screaming in his legs, the mental challenge is one Swift was not fully prepared for.

“I would probably say stage 14 was the hardest day, mentally more than physically,” he reflects of a relatively flat stage from Clermont-Ferrand to Lyon. “It was a battle in the peloton and I was struggling to get position for the narrow and tight corners.

“I just didn’t have it mentally that day. It’d been a long time away from home and I just had a bad day.

“But I survived and, encouragingly, I came out the following day and I was fresh and ready to go again.

“So it’s something to learn from for next time. You’re in a Tour de France for the long haul, you’ve got to be switched on for the whole three weeks and if it’s not going your way, you’ve just got to stick at it.”

Will he get a chance to ride another Tour de France? His efforts this last month will certainly have done him no harm, and a recently-signed contract extension covering the next two years with Arkea-Samsic means he will be able to further establish himself with an ambitious team.

“It was just a mega-experience,” he said.

“My first Tour de France – I went there with a job to do, and for the first couple of weeks on the flat supporting Nairo Quintana I think I did that pretty well. I think the team is happy with how I performed. And from a personal perspective, just knowing I’m capable of finishing one and I had good legs in the final days.

“It’s definitely given me a taste for it. I want to do it again next year and in future years.

“I certainly can’t call myself inexperienced any more.”

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James Mitchinson